Federal court rejects new Texas voter photo ID law

By WILL WEISSERT, the Associated Press •August 30, 2012 6:11 pm

AUSTIN, Texas — A tough Texas law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls discriminates against low-income blacks and Hispanics, a federal court ruled Thursday, wiping out for the November election a measure championed by conservatives and setting up a potential U.S. Supreme Court showdown.

In Washington, a three-judge panel unanimously ruled that the 2011 law imposes “strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor” and noted that Texas’ racial minorities are more likely to live in poverty.

It was the state’s second major loss in court in three days, coming after a separate federal panel ruled Tuesday that Texas’ Republican-dominated Legislature failed to avoid “discriminatory purposes” when drawing new maps for congressional districts and both houses of the state Legislature to reflect the Texas’ booming population.

The voter ID decision could set a precedent for upcoming legal challenges to similar laws in other states. South Carolina’s strict photo ID law is on trial this week in front of another three-judge panel in the same federal courthouse. A ruling in that case is expected before the November election.

It also underscores a widespread push, largely by Republican-controlled legislatures and governors’ offices, to impose strict identification requirements on voters. But Democrats say fraud at the polls is largely nonexistent and that Republicans are trying to disenfranchise minorities, poor people and college students — all groups that tend to vote Democratic.

State Attorney General Greg Abbott said he will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, “where we are confident we will prevail.” He pointed to past decisions upholding similar “ballot integrity safeguards” in Georgia and Indiana.

“Today, federal judges subverted the will of the people of Texas,” he said, “and undermined our effort to ensure fair and accurate elections.”

A report by the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan legal think tank in New York, determined that new voting restrictions could suppress the votes of more than 5 million young, minority, low-income and disabled voters nationwide. And election administrators and academics who monitor the issue say generally that in-person fraud is rare because someone would have to impersonate a reg istered voter and risk arrest.

During the Texas voter ID case, the Justice Department called several lawmakers, all of them Democrats, who said they detected a clear racial motive in the push for the law. Lawyers for Texas argued that the state was simply tightening its laws. Texas called experts who demonstrated that voter ID laws had a minimal effect on turnout, and Republican state lawmakers testified that the legi slation was the result of a popular demand for more election protections.

The voter ID judges were Rosemary Collyer, an appointee of former President George W. Bush; Robert Wilkins, an appointee of President Barack Obama; and David Tatel, an appeals court judge appointed by Bill Clinton.

Tatel, writing for the panel, called the Texas law “the most stringent in the nation.” He said it would impose a heavier burden on voters than a similar law in Indiana, previously upheld by the Supreme Court, and one in Georgia, which the Justice Department allowed to take effect without objection.

Thursday’s decision spelled out what Texas could do to soften its voter ID law and eventually be upheld in court — but Abbott’s decision to appeal means Texas may be looking for a larger Supreme Court battle regarding the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Under Section 5 of the act, Texas and all or parts of 15 other states must obtain clearance from the Justice Department’s civil rights division or a federal court before carrying out changes in elections. The states are mostly in the South and all have a history of discriminating against blacks, American Indians, Asian-Americans, Alaskan Natives or Hispanics.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday that the voter ID ruling and “the decision earlier this week on the Texas redistricting plans not only reaffirm — but help protect — the vital role the Voting Rights Act plays in our society to ensure that every American has the right to vote and to have that vote counted.”

Last December, South Carolina’s voter ID requirement became the first such law to be rejected by the Justice Department in nearly 20 years. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said the attorney general made a “very serious error” by blocking it.

In 2011, new voter ID laws passed in Kansas, Mississippi, Rhode Island and Wisconsin, while Alabama and Tennessee tightened existing voter ID laws to require photo ID. Governors in Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire and North Carolina vetoed such laws.

This year, Pennsylvania enacted its own law and voting-rights groups are appealing to the state Supreme Court. And in Wisconsin, a county judge ruled in July that the state’s new photo ID law impairs the right to vote. In an appeal, Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen argues the law doesn’t impose an undue burden because voters can get free state ID cards.